Non-fiction: Bitch Doctrine

Refreshing, anticapitalist - but little pointing way forward

Following the election of Donald Trump millions of women marched around the world in protest, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Becci Heagney, Salford Socialist Party

Many people, particularly young women, will see their experiences reflected in the pages of Laurie Penny's latest book. 'Bitch Doctrine' features the struggle for abortion rights, the battle against gender stereotypes and the frustration at the little that capitalism has to offer to us.

Penny is clearly anticapitalist, which makes a refreshing change to many writers in the mainstream press who essentially say 'there is no alternative.'

In one of the articles on abortion rights, for example, she argues it is a right for women to have autonomy over their bodies, but also an economic issue: "If there were real choice, real equality, pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood would not come with enormous socioeconomic penalties for all but the richest women."

However, her writing does not focus on what capitalism is and where oppression comes from. Instead it mainly looks at relationships between individuals and language.

Offensive language and behaviour should always be challenged. But to restrict our fight for change to this renders it ineffective.

The first page contains the passage: "As I write, it feels like the world is falling apart. A craven billionaire real-estate mogul and reality television shyster has just been elected to the presidency of the United States, swept to power by a wave of racist rage and violent populism.

"The British government is collapsing after the worst political crisis in living memory, the centre-left opposition is eating itself, bigots are getting brave in the streets and the stock markets are tumbling."

There is very little in Bitch Doctrine that points a way forward for people who are angry and want change.

Instead, Penny puts the blame, several times, on "years and years of rape apologism on the left" or the "inability to deal properly with male violence against women" and a bizarre accusation that "the usual suspects are at pains to point out that geopolitical disaster could have been avoided if we had all been less precious about gay rights and women's rights and black lives and concentrated on the issues that matter to real people."

We want to help build a vibrant movement that involves all sections of the working class to tackle racism, sexism, homophobia and all kinds of discrimination - and the capitalist system which perpetuates them.

But it seems that for Penny, power and class do not originate in the structure of capitalist society, but from an individual's position relative to another individual within that structure.

Being working class is not just about being poor. It's about our collective role within society and the power that gives us to change it.

Imagine the difference we can make if we go beyond just correcting the language used by others to mass strikes and political struggle that could start to build a new, democratic and equal society: a socialist world.

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